]]>By: Daily Pundit » California’s Long Suicide Proceeds Apacehttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4824288
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:37:09 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4824288[…] Surprise! California high-speed rail cost explodes « Hot Air Let’s put this in perspective. The higher-end estimate of just the cost overruns is more than twice the cost of Cash for Clunkers. It’s also about one-sixth of the entire reduction to the FY2011 budget forced by Republicans in April after a long showdown with Democrats. The California high-speed rail is not a train to nowhere — it’s an express to bankruptcy, especially if the project continues past this sideline spur. […]
]]>By: eonhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4824197
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:50:17 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4824197R

ail uses more fuel per passenger mile than air travel. The ideologues claim rail is energy saving because they assume in their numbers every seat is full and every car has only one passenger.

seven on August 15, 2011 at 8:30 AM

HSR, or any passenger rail system, is only functional in relatively restricted circumstances. The main factor being passenger density.

Passenger rail works very well in areas with high population density and relatively high business commuter numbers. In other words, areas in which cities are built along European lines in restricted groundspace. England, France, the U.S. East Coast (BosWash) Corridor, and the Honshu Corridor in Japan (Tokyo/Kobe/Osaka) all fall into this category.

Modern-day American progressives, on the other hand, are ideologically committed to passenger rail everywhere, largely from an environmentalist/social engineering standpoint. The result is that they want to build their train sets in places where there is not enough ridership to pay for it, and never will be.

The now-cancelled Ohio High Speed Rail plan, the brainchild of Obama and former Democrat governor Ted Strickland, was a case in point. It would have linked Columbus, the state capital, with Cincinnati on the Ohio River and Cleveland on Lake Erie. (Note that all three cities are Democrat strongholds.) Ridership would never have come up to even minimum DOT standards for rail “break-even”, simply because most actual businesses in all three cities are operated by people who live within 40 miles of each one. And even state employees who needed to go from one to the other would be more likely to fly, if they didn’t just phone; “teleconferencing”, by the way, was also one of Strickland’s big ideas to save fuel. (Proving that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, as the old pre-digital saying goes.)

The running joke here in Ohio was that the “3C” rail system would mainly have been used by Democrat bigwigs in Columbus to squire big contributors back and forth to Reds games in Cincy and Browns games in Cleveland- while wining, dining, and schmoozing them for money.

The less amusing theory was that insiders were busy buying up right-of-way property, preparatory to selling it to the state at an inflated price- a gag straight out of the 1870s, but don’t bet it wouldn’t have happened. The threats of legal action from the Obama crowd when incoming Republican governor John Kasich cancelled the project and tried to return the Federal funds made some people wonder just who got left holding the bag- and lots of otherwise low-dollar/acre land- as a result of such machinations being torpedoed by Kasich’s action.

Passenger rail is a transport method which only works with enough bodies in enough seats to make it pay. Which means that in most of the United States, the geography will turn it into a money loser every time.

The fact that progressives either do not understand this, or are determined to ignore it in pursuit of their Utopian fantasies, does not speak well of their actual knowledge. Or, for that matter, their common sense. If any.

clear ether

eon

]]>By: right2brighthttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4824078
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:47:50 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4824078Take a look at Atlanta…a similar smaller project, under protest the termination point wasn’t the stadium (which makes sense), it was a government project. No one rides that train that has a job.
]]>By: right2brighthttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4824073
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:42:02 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4824073Only in a governments estimate would construction costs go up during this period of economic woes.
Almost every single construction project you can get lower bids, than a couple of years ago.
I lived in California for 40 years, and I hardly even knew where these places were. Borden, never heard of, might as well connect Ridgecrest with Los Banos…glad I moved away.
]]>By: sevenhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4824057
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:30:55 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4824057Rail uses more fuel per passenger mile than air travel. The ideologues claim rail is energy saving because they assume in their numbers every seat is full and every car has only one passenger.
]]>By: SKYFOXhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4824002
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:52:40 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4824002

The European FORD Fiesta: 65mpg (diesel) costing 13,000, less CO2 than the Prius.

The US Ford Fiesta: 30+mpg (our sexy gas)

GM Volt (40m/battery only), battery replacement 10K, cost:41,000.

I think I am going to throw up.

journeyintothewhirlwind on August 14, 2011 at 11:49 PM

You’d think the regime and the EPA were dead-set on keeping us dependent on foreign oil.

Doesn’t make sense unless one can assume that there is a percentage of land/property owned by politicians and/or the contracted construction company between these two towns which just coincidentally are also located along the proposed rail bed.

The main reason that Ford isn’t bringing the Fiesta (which actually gets 65MPG to the US is the exchange rate between the British pound (where the engine is made) and the dollar, plus the fact that the car does NOT qualify for the Government’s alternative energy rebate.

Digging a bit into the story, we have that the car would have to compete against the Toyota Prius, which costs more before the rebate, but costs less afterward.

I suspect the other side of the coin is that diesel in California is quite a bit higher than gasoline — because of the de-sulphuring costs.

So it’s not that the cars are being prevented by the Government from being sold here, it’s that the Government has distorted this marketplace to sell Volts.

WTH, build it parallel or to sub-parallel to the San Andreas Fault for long distances, and across or along as many step-over faults as possible. Then advertise it as the potentially ultimate thrill ride.

A lot of people might be willing to pay for the chance to be traveling at 150 mph when an 8.9 hits.

Yoop on August 14, 2011 at 9:08 PM

I can dig it! My bro-in-law and his daughter would be first in line. They hit all the new roller coasters when they are built. Call The Donald, Disney, Mall of America, whomever…this is a winner!!!!! LOL

]]>By: crosspatchhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4823129
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 01:15:41 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4823129I favor government owning the rail beds just like they do the freeways. Allow private companies to compete hauling passengers and freight but the tracks are owned by the people. We already have a railroad from LA to SF but the freight company won’t upgrade the line. Passenger service is also on that line but it has to go slow and pull over for freight trains which have the right of way.

Take over the existing lines, allow the freight company to operate on them, and use something like we do for air traffic control for dispatching the trains on the route.

]]>By: Yoophttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4823101
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 01:08:22 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4823101WTH, build it parallel or to sub-parallel to the San Andreas Fault for long distances, and across or along as many step-over faults as possible. Then advertise it as the potentially ultimate thrill ride.

A lot of people might be willing to pay for the chance to be traveling at 150 mph when an 8.9 hits.

And to make the point lucidly, there’s this quote;
“My job is to coerce people out of their cars.”

From Ray LaHood, Chicago-area RINO and now Obama’s Secretary of Transportation.

This would tend to explain why virtually all of the “stimulus” money spent by DOT went for HSR studies, and bike paths. Not for maintenance of the “failing transportation infrastructure”, like highways and bridges, that Obama now affects to be worried about.

The only bull excrement in this meme is the idea that Obama cares about highways. He sees them, and the automobile, as remnants of an evil past. To him, the train and the bicycle are the Future. He looks at China, and loves their “egalitarian” transportation setup.

The fact that Chinese who can afford automobiles buy them is totally lost on him. But then, reality never seems to register with this president, or his acolytes. Their socialistic, command-and-control fantasy Utopia is always so much more interesting and fulfilling for them.

When reality finally does set in, once and for all, I suspect most of them will never get over it.

clear ether

eon

]]>By: proconstitutionhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4823070
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:58:07 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4823070Do you suppose the Krugs and Obama types spend their own money like they spend ours?

The answer is no. They only do it when they can seal it from moral, productive people and give it to immoral, dems, the parasites among us. Obama is worse that Hitler. Krugman is not unlike Goebbles.

Construction of the first stretch of tracks – as much as 140 miles from south of Merced to just north of Bakersfield – is scheduled to begin by September 2012 using $3.5 billion in federal money and an estimated $2.8 billion from the sale of state bonds approved by voters.

Not only is it a train to practically nowhere, there are not supposed to be any trains actually running on it for some 10 years. They are going to build this stretch of track and the stations and leave the run vacant until more of it is completed. They haven’t figured that the scrap thieves will be in there stealing the rails and the fixtures and wiring from the stations before they even have a chance to put a train on it. I suspect the entire system will be stripped bare within 5 years.

If you are going to build rail, FINE, build sections that will actually be used.

I pointed all that out along with the LAO report at the SF Chronicle’s website in a comment in response to an article last week. The comment was immediately disappeared. It didn’t even have that blurb that says “this comment has been deleted …” it was simply erased clean as if it had never existed after about 5 minutes of life on their site.

Basically all I did in the comment was quote some of the LAO (legislative accounting office) report and linked to the report itself. Comment deleted. I tried again, deleted again.

]]>By: tflst5http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4822994
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:29:40 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4822994China has squandered untold amounts of wealth on stupid infrastructure projects. They’ve built entire vacant cities just to keep the construction sector going. Its the sort of illogical thinking you get with socialists.
]]>By: eaglewingz08http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4822691
Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:24:14 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4822691This is the big dig disaster (MA) of California. I knew this would happen since even China’s high speed rail authority has collapsed with corruption and cost overruns. If commie China can’t control the exorbitant costs of high speed rail, what chance did highly unionized democrap California to keep this even close to budget?
]]>By: Blue Collar Toddhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4822644
Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:09:02 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4822644And how much will will cost here in California to maintain it? I will not take my family on it. I’d rather drive.
]]>By: rockmomhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/14/surprise-california-high-speed-rail-cost-explodes/comment-page-2/#comment-4822550
Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:41:01 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=153188#comment-4822550That was one of my alltime favorite George Will columns, not least because of the apoplexy in the comments section!

Mass transit is the liberals’ Holy Grail. And I mean that lliterally, it is a legendary object that nobody has ever seen, at least not in the form the liberals dream of, and they have a religious belief in its healing powers.

Cars = freedom. Not just freedom of movement, either, but freedom of expression. People can buy a car that reflects their personality, their taste (or lack of it), their thrift, their profligacy, their love of history, their love of modernity, their favorite color – all sorts of things. Trains are One Size Fits All, just the way liberals like it.